A 13-YEAR-OLD girl whose life was saved when her mum gave her a kidney has told how the gift has changed her life.

Rebecca Brierley had a transplant when she was 12 , with a kidney donated by mum Sally, and now leads a full and active life.

The Rhyl High School pupil completed a Kidney Wales Foundation charity walk only four months after the op and is set to do another one in March.

She said: "I will be going on the walk myself and inviting my friends to come with me. I hope others come too."

Rebecca said: "I found out in May 2007 I was ill. I’d been pale but I was still a faster runner than my friends sometimes.

"My mum eventually took me to the doctor. They sent me for a blood test at Ysbyty Glan Clwyd. Then they rang and said ‘Come in as soon as you can’. I was on dialysis first once a day, then three times a day then overnight. I needed a transplant."

The kidney was taken from Sally at Manchester Royal Infirmary and transplanted into Rebecca at Pendlebury Children’s Hospital in Salford on November 20, 2008.

"I was in my pyjamas with a cannula (tube) in my hand and arm in hospital when one op was cancelled on August 28, 2008 because Mum had a blood clot.

"That was disappointing and I was nervous it would happen again. But I was happy when it went ahead in the November. I’m so grateful to my mum.

"I was sore (after the operation) and have a curved scar on my left side a few inches long. I had a tube in my chest but that’s out now. I can go swimming at the baths in Rhyl."

Her mum, 34, who works in a care home, said: "Rebecca had been pale but, because we saw her every day, we got used to it. I felt terrible when I found out she’d been ill."

But deciding to donate a kidney was easy. Ms Brierley said: "You don’t see it as a sacrifice. Improving my daughter’s quality of life outweighed any difficulties I had.

"For the best success rate, the doctors prefer someone who is living and who is a family member.

"Rebecca’s dad’s blood type didn’t match, but Rebecca and I are both B rhesus negative.

"You also go through rigorous, psychological profile tests to make sure you’re not being bullied into it or being pushed into it by doctors and made to feel guilty. It was what I wanted to do."

Ms Brierley added: "They took my left kidney because it has the longest arteries and veins to be ‘reconnected’.

"I lead a normal life. I work 12½-hour shifts in a residential home. I’m up and down three floors of stairs."

Rebecca’s dad Jonathan Toy, 44, of Rhyl, said: "Rebecca is amazing considering what she’s been through. She was white as a sheet before the transplant operation. Afterwards she’s become her normal self."

A five-mile ‘Walk of Life’ in aid of the Kidney Wales Foundation starts at Gwaenysgor village hall near Prestatyn on Sunday, March 28 at 11am. The route takes in Trelawynyd, Llanasa then back to Gwaenysgor. For details ring Kidney Wales Foundation on 02920 343 940 or visit www.kidneywales.com

Kidney Wales Foundation organiser Lynwen (corr) Parry, of Gwaenysgor, said: "We would urge as many people as possible to join the walk on March 28. We make sandwiches cakes and drinks at the village hall afterwards."

Her husband Gwyn had a kidney transplant at the Royal Liverpool University Hospital in 1987, aged 46.

Last year, countless Good Samaritans on 57 walks in the whole of Wales raised nearly £90,000 for kidney patient for projects to help children with kidney failure and disease.